


Debrief, Debrief

by HerenorThereNearnorFar



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Getting Everyone Dusted Off and Into Bed, Missing Scene, Post Episode 132 Entombed, Recovery, Trauma, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HerenorThereNearnorFar/pseuds/HerenorThereNearnorFar
Summary: Even monsters need to take a shower and put on a clean set of clothes after crawling out of the grave.
Relationships: Basira Hussain & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 2
Kudos: 42





	Debrief, Debrief

Basira holds Daisy loosely in the circle of her arms, tender, cautious not to trap or restrict her. From his placed sprawled on the floor Jon can only watch and hunger.

The crackling whisper of the tapes all around them reminds him that he’s real; unfortunately his body is an unpleasant place to be.

They stay in their exhausted stupor for a while until Melanie arrives in Artifact Storage, heralded by a “Basira?” and then a “ _Christ_ —“

“They came back,” Basira’s voice is thick. “Jon brought her back.”

“They’re filthy,” Melanie points out. That’s all it takes to bring Basira back to herself.

“Right, right. We need to get you all showered and fed and into bed. In that order.” She lets go of Daisy, who whines as she pulls away.

“There’s a chemical decontamination shower in the women’s restroom closest to artifact storage.” It’s easy enough to let the information flow out of him. Even Melanie lets this tidbit slide without a nasty look, maybe because it is conceivably something the Jonathan Sims of a year ago would have known.

“Mm. Daisy is in no state to walk,” no protest which would have been inconceivable from the Daisy he first met, “And I can’t carry her myself. Jon, can you stand?”

He tries, dragging himself up on the edge of the coffin (closed but still unlocked). Shaky though his legs are he manages to stay on them, and Basira nods. “Good. Melanie, help me with her.”

Melanie’s barely in a state to walk herself, she still limps most days. What have they ever been except the injured helping the most grievously wounded?

They traipse out the corner of ArtifStor that the Buried was buried in, Basira and Melanie hauling Daisy between them with curses and winces, Jon staggering several yards behind and leaning at intervals on the walls. Near the door they encounter a staff member who Jon should know. He lets Basira talk to him, explain away the cursed coffin unlocked in his back room, the dirt being dragged through his pristine stacks by two bedraggled zombies. While she forestalls a call to Rosie he rests his head against the cool wall. 

“Sims,” Melanie snaps, “Move.”

The rest is a blur. He knows he makes it to the restroom outside of Artifact Storage under his own power only because when his legs do give out from under him he lands on cool bathroom tile, not the plasticy linoleum of the storage rooms. There are voices above him and then Basira yanks him up by the collar and pushes a paper cup of water into his hand. “You can have a statement when we get back down to the archives but before that you need to be--”

“Clean?”

“Less filthy.”

He glances over at Daisy, propped up against the wall next to him. The smile she gives him is weak, yes, but it’s also one of the first smiles anyone has sent his way in weeks. 

“Where is everyone? Is it nighttime or...”

“Midafternoon. Melanie kicked a lady out of here and put a sign on the door so we shouldn’t be bothered.” That makes sense, though he has sympathy for whichever employee of the Magnus Institute was just accosted in the women’s restroom. They haven’t had an easy few months. 

“Where is she now?”

“She went to get you both clothes. Now drink.” Basira shakes the paper cup of water threateningly, all but forcing it into Jon’s hand, before returning her attention to Daisy. 

The water goes down his dusty, grime encrusted throat, leaving behind mud, then grit, then finally scoured flesh. The taste of his own mucus has never been so sweet. 

“Better if you both go in the shower after one another, we don’t know how much water is in the tank,” however grudgingly she makes her calls, Basira is a pragmatist. “Come on, out of your clothes.”

“Not even going to buy me dinner?” Daisy whispers, voice fractured, hands shaky as she helps Basira with the straps of what was a tactical vest before the dirt took it. 

Jon tries to ignore them and focus on his own clothes, the easy to shuck off sweater, the trousers now destined for the garbage. 

His knowing and their proximity mean that he can’t wholly ignore the pair next to him. Basira chokes on a laugh, whispers “Later,” and helplessly grips the thin circle of Daisy’s wrist before getting a grip of herself. 

When she moves to help Jon, who has extricated himself from his clothing as much as is possible without standing, her eyes are somewhat colder. There’s still enough camaraderie lingering for her to say, “You wore the right gear for the job,” in a tone that’s only half joking. 

“None of us have exactly been wearing full office wear around,” he points out. In the absence of actual standards of employment Casual Fridays have become an everyday occurance in the archives.

The nakedness doesn’t really matter. It is a testament to the power of the fears that they face that all regular trappings of existing in a body, the shame, the fear, the joy, have all slipped away. After so long reading about meat, skin, and eyes-- after seeing the horrors that can be made of humanity-- there’s no implicit sexuality to flesh anymore. Social mores between them have all but vanished. 

He does avert his gaze from Daisy’s bare limbs, and she and Basira are polite enough to do the same, but it’s mostly a formality. They’re too coated in dirt to actually see anything, he knows. 

“Jon first,” Basira orders, yanking him up and pushing him under the chemical shower. She doesn’t even give him the courtesy of a warning before she yanks the chain, dousing him in cold water. The shock and pressure nearly send him crashing back to the ground, he clings with one hand to the piping and tries to loosen the dirt in his hair with the other. 

The Buried clings. Under the waterfall of the shower it is just barely banished, specks of dirt swirling down the drain. Some lingers in his lungs, forever trapped in his body, making a home in the corners of him. The knowledge burns in his brain the same way that all dark secrets do. 

There’s no way to quite feel clean after a dunk in the crushing dark but when he’s no longer encrusted he steps out, nearly slipping on wet tile. 

“No concussions for the Archivist,” Melanie tells him. It’s not Melanie who catches him but she’s the one who hands him a bundle of spare clothes, loose and soft. “We can’t have you becoming any _less_ all knowing.”

He can’t get concussion anymore at least not ones that last. He swallows that helpful fact and turns away to wring out his hair and put on the offered clothes. The shirt (one of Martin’s, a leftover from his stay) and the sweatpants (Jon’s own, he’s started keeping clothes here because it’s easier then going home) cling damply to his wet skin. Already he can feel himself getting a chill. 

Daisy needs longer to scrub the dirt from her skin. Melanie managed to scrounge up some soap out of the assortment of homegoods the Archive staff have started to keep around-- it’s to wash your face in the breakroom sink then to leave the building but it’s easiest to just not bother with anything but the most basic of hygeine-- and that helps. 

Jon waits, braced against a sink, trying not to look in the mirror. 

When Daisy is finely clean to Basira’s standards, wrapped in a loaned set of pajamas and a bath robe, they huddle back together move like a flock out of the bathroom. There are other employees at the door, watching them (everyone always watches here, even those who are not Watchers; it attracts a certain personality). No sign of Martin, just a lot of mild colleagues whose names he can’t quite remember.

Eyes follow them down the halls. 

Behind the door of the achives, in the relative safety of their nest, Basira sits them both down on mattresses in the clean room. There’s the oldest bed, an air mattress that he thinks Melanie dragged in, and a new foamy monstrosity that Georgie got from some sponser of her show and promptly pawned off on him. She hands them both mugs of tea, watches them drink with a sharp expression, and then hands Jon a statement and Daisy a microwavable breakfast sandwich. 

There’s a sandwich offered to him as well, and he could eat... but he has more pressing hungers. The autocannibalism of experiencing the buried can’t quite replace the voyeuristic thrill of someone else’s half digested fear. He can see them judging him for that. 

“You should sleep.” Basira orders when they are sated. Halfway out the door she says. “I’ll be in the office, if you need me...” She pauses again, heavily, finger hovering over the switch. “Lights on or off?”

“Off is fine,” Daisy whispers. 

They lay for a while in the dark, watching each other in the absence of anything else to do. The wet gleam of Daisy’s eyes reminds him horribly of a predator, however broken down she is he cannot fully forget her hands at his throat. 

“Go to sleep, Sims.” She says after a long period of prolonged eyecontact in the gloom, but even after she rolls over he knows she’s still awake. Afraid, not of the dark but of the space, the lack of pressure holding her down. The absence of terror after so long spent brining in fear is unsettling. 

There isn’t much space in the little room, all the mattresses are shoved together on the bare floor next to boxes of forgotten belongings. It’s very easy to get her attention, reach out, and take her hand. 

She doesn’t go for his throat or pull away, both of which he expected. Hands clasped tight enough to hurt, it is easier to imagine that everything might be okay. 


End file.
